Working Paper: NBER ID: w14512
Authors: Kohei Enami; John Mullahy
Abstract: Practitioners of empirical health economics might be forgiven for paying little heed to the recent 50th anniversary of the publication of one of the most important papers in its methodological heritage: James Tobin's widely-cited 1958 Econometrica paper that developed what later became known as the Tobit estimator. This golden anniversary milestone provides a fitting opportunity to reflect on Tobin's contribution and to assess the role that econometric limited dependent variable modeling has played in empirical health economics. Of primary focus here is how Tobin's estimator came to be and came to take root in empirical health economics. The paper provides a brief history of Tobin's estimator and related methods up through about 1971, discusses the early applications of Tobit and related estimators in health economics, i.e. the "technology diffusion" of Tobit in health economics, and offers some concluding remarks.
Keywords: Tobit Estimator; Health Economics; Limited Dependent Variable Modeling
JEL Codes: I1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Tobin's estimator (C51) | awareness of implications of analyzing economic outcomes with limited range (F61) |
| Tobin's estimator (C51) | methodological innovations in econometrics (B23) |
| adoption of Tobin's estimator (C51) | advancements in health economics research (I10) |
| diffusion of Tobin's estimator (C22) | application of econometric methods to analyze health-related data (C41) |
| adoption of Tobin's methods (H87) | broader understanding of economic behaviors related to health outcomes (I10) |